Yuto: Group Visit to Full-time Student

Yuto came to Northland initially for just a couple of weeks in 2019 with a group of students from Otani High School in Kyoto. He loved it so much that he came back to study full-time at Whangarei Boys High School for a year in 2020.

“In 2019 I came to WBHS with some other Japanese students as part of a group from Otani High School which is my Japanese school. I made some friends, they were my first foreign friends and I had a very good time in New Zealand.

Then I thought I want to come back to NZ and I want to go back to WBHS. Immediately after returning to Japan I started my preparation and in January 2020 I came back to New
Zealand. At the beginning of the year, there was another Japanese student in WBHS so I was always talking to him in Japanese and I was not good at speaking English so I didn’t like to go to school.

However, I had a surfing trip and that was my first time to surf so that was a really nice
experience and my English started to improve. After lockdown, some trips were cancelled because of COVID-19 but I still had some trips. I had an overnight camp trip which was good. There is no class such as Outdoor Education in Japan so that was a new experience and it was fun.

However, I think the international trip to Rotorua was the best thing. I loved the hot springs – Leo and I did the Big Swing at the Skyline. That was really scary. We also went to The Hobbiton Movie Set – that was a very nice place to go. After I went there I watched all the Hobbit movies with my host mother. This was a really fun thing to do.

Now in Term 3, my English is really growing and I have made some more friends and that has made me enjoy going to school. Sometimes I do feel the language barrier and the culture barrier but this has been a really nice experience for me so I’m so happy that I came and studied here.

2022 Update on Yuto

“I’m in Kyoto busy doing my study to be a doctor. I still can get really high score on my English exam so it really help me and in Kyoto there are a lot of visitors from abroad and I sometimes talk with them😎.”